East Indiaman in the context of "Privateer"

Kent, launched in 1799, was an East Indiaman of the British East India Company. On her first voyage in 1800, she was on her way to Bengal and Bencoolen when the French privateer Robert Surcouf captured her near the mouth of the Ganges.

Confiance, launched in 1797, was a privateer corvette from Bordeaux, famous for being Robert Surcouf's ship during the capture of the British East India Company's East Indiaman Kent. Confiance had captured a number of ships through the years before the British Royal Navy captured her in 1805, taking her into service under her existing name. The Royal Navy sold her in 1810, by which time she had taken part in two notable actions in British service. Confiance then sailed as a merchantman, until 1816.

Robert Surcouf (French pronunciation: [ʁɔbɛʁ syʁkuf]; 12 December 1773 – 8 July 1827) was a French privateer, businessman and slave trader who operated in the Indian Ocean from 1789 to 1808 during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Capturing over 40 prizes, he later amassed a large fortune from a variety of commercial activities, such as ship-owning, privateering, slave trading and owning land.

Surcouf started his maritime career as an officer on the ships Aurore, Courrier d'Afrique and Navigateur. Having risen to the rank of captain, he illegally engaged in slave trading onboard the slave ship Créole. Surcouf then captained the merchantman Émilie, on which he engaged in commerce raiding despite lacking a letter of marque. He preyed on British shipping, capturing several merchantmen including the East Indiaman Triton, before returning to the Isle de France where his prizes were confiscated. Surcouf then returned to France, where he obtained prize money from the government. Returning to the Indian Ocean, Surcouf captained the privateers Clarisse and Confiance, raiding British, American, and Portuguese shipping. He captured the East Indiaman Kent on 7 October 1800. Returning to France, Surcouf was awarded the Legion of Honour and settled down as a businessman.

Triton was launched in 1787, as an East Indiaman for the British East India Company (EIC). She made three full voyages for the EIC before the French privateer Robert Surcouf captured her in 1796, while she was on her fourth voyage. She returned to British ownership shortly thereafter and the EIC chartered her for three more voyages to Britain. She was based at Calcutta and was last listed in 1809.

The Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811 was a minor military campaign of the Napoleonic Wars fought between British and French forces over France's Indian Ocean colonies of Isle de France and Isle Bonaparte. Lasting from the spring of 1809 to the spring of 1811, the campaign saw the British and French navies deploy substantial frigate squadrons to either protect or disrupt British-flagged shipping in the region. In a war in which the Royal Navy was almost universally dominant at sea, the campaign is especially notable for the local superiority enjoyed by the French Navy in autumn 1810 following their victory at the Battle of Grand Port, the British navy's most significant defeat in the entire conflict.

British commanders had been planning an operation against Isle de France since occupying the Dutch Cape Colony in 1806 and destroying the Dutch squadron in Java in 1807, but acted earlier than planned following the arrival from France of a powerful frigate squadron under Commodore Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin in late 1808. Hamelin's squadron captured several British East Indiamen and disrupted Britain's trade routes across the Indian Ocean by raiding the convoys in which its merchantmen travelled. Forced to confront this threat, Admiral Albemarle Bertie at the Cape Colony ordered Commodore Josias Rowley to blockade the French colonies and prevent their use use as raiding bases.

An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in long distance and high value trade. In more modern times, auxiliary cruisers were used offensively as merchant raiders to disrupt trade chiefly during both World War I and World War II, particularly by Germany.

While armed merchantmen are clearly inferior to purpose-built warships, sometimes they have scored successes in combat against them. Examples include East Indiamen mimicking ships of the line and chasing off regular French warships in the Battle of Pulo Aura in 1804, and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran sinking the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney in their battle in 1941, although Kormoran was also destroyed and had to be scuttled.